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Thursday, September 14th, Henties Bay, Namibia Finally, a really quiet (comparatively) week to just veg out and get some form of what we delude ourselves to be "schooling" in for the kids - their peers went back to school in Canada last week. Positively almost boring. Almost. Sept 8 - 11th.: Apart from the day we arrived, the weather has been cold, clammy, foggy. What a fantastic wonderful change from the deserts we've lived in for a week or so. There is actual grass here! REAL green stuff a first for a long time
We get down to solid school effort with some geography, English, maths (most popular), reading in English & French, local history and somehow or other bits of French grammar etc. Aiden helps Kayla with lots, but we have very little stuff for him to work on. They both use the CD on the lap top for hours, and by the end of the week end can sing some pretty duets. It's a start. After a few days of this, I just know we do not pay our teachers enough! Our approach is loosely based on the idea that as long as they keep learning something, that will at least be a good step to keeping them thinking. Thankfully, I banned all electronic games before we came. During the long drives, Aiden & Kayla play imagination games (often with words like "weapons" and levels attached), but they have also both begun to consume books on their own. A few kids books (English is prefered), and they are away to the races. During our trip across the Namib to Walvis Bay, Aiden spent 2 hours in the dust, dross, fading light and shaking, to read! Kayla, also now has to finish stories, and will do so without whingeing for someone else to read to her. These are good signs. As I'd hoped, there is sod all to do here except fish. Monday evening, we try the local restaurant. Not bad, better than adequate, but no Mitchelin awards. Large rather than tasty is the order of the day. Aiden is now addicted to pepper steaks, and eats (at least) one a day, much to Ilges disapproval. We have only seen a few families here in this time share - very few people here, and most of those were only here for the Friday to Sunday. Seems that you can have time shares in Southern Africa, on a half week basis too. So, come Monday, we are pretty much on our own. We merrily pass the days, occasionally catching what few rays there are, and braiing away the evenings. The "town" of Henties Bay is pretty down market, there is an e-mail shop which also sells china dolls etc, and the owner has to wait for me to finish before he can continue working. At $CAN14.00/ hour, I decide to use it for urgent stuff only. Actually had to organise a work related item urgently, so it did come in handy. Also noted that the "repaired" tyre was still leaking, found that the damage caused by the stone was more or less irreversible, and had to stick a tube in it and will keep it for a spare only. With this in mind, I've now added a pressure gauge to my tool kit, and check the (5) tire pressure every few days, or whenever we leave for a long trek.
So, we blew it again, we tour the lagoon (still cool and foggy) in the cruiser. Lots of flamingoes. Back into Walvis for coffee, bits etc. Decide to try to do a camel tour outside Swakopmund, so we are back up the coast. A few more e-mails (keep it up folks - we love to hear from you all), and by 2:00PM we are wandering around on camels. Nothing like I expected - we only sit on them and get led around a path. Bit of a piss off. They fart a lot, and smell worse than the kids do! We also asked the woman in charge to video tape us will on board, and she totally screwed up. I was really pissed off about this! All I ended up with was a still of us all. We but the requisite T-shirts.
Wednesday was spent on some more school work for the kids and reading for us. Both Ilge & I do some of our "settled" chores, me vehicular, battery charging etc. her, food, clothing etc stuff. Being here for a week means we can unload everything from the van, and sort through and re prioritise etc our set up. I finally finish the last of the Economists I picked up in Cape Town, now what to keep my amused? The only excitement of the day was Kayla upchucking through the night (details by request only). All well again come Thursday AM. We treat ourselves to a round of golf. This being the desert, only the "greens" are actually green, the rest of the course is - you guessed it, desert. We hack around with 3, 4 & 5 irons (means nothing to me) for the day, stopping for lunch at the local hotel. The scores (per hole) par 4, are of the order of 17 (Ilge & Aiden) - 12 (Kayla & I). Ilge leaves us for the PM slot to do the laundry, driving back the cruiser dies (!!), so she walks to the last hole. It now only takes me 30 seconds to fix the problem (airlock in the fuel pipe, and we are back for our final braii in Henties. Tomorrow we head off north to the Cape Fur seal Colony, and then North East toward Etosha, back to some serious animal and game viewing we hope. Distance travelled this entry: 0 Km. Distance moved on trip this entry: 350 Km |
Have grounded the kids for two days as they were playing in the surf, and this is not a pleasure beach. Three/ five feet of surf on the
beach is very dangerous I told them before they went down..... well think again. The Benguela current is also very cold, live &
direct from Antarctica, for your swimming pleasure, I think not. Still this works well to get some real school work done.
Come Tuesday 12th, we try for the harbour tour of Walvis Bay again: 100Km away, so we are out of here early, 7:30 (hey! that's
1:30 to you guys back home!). Kayla & I think the boat leaves at 9:30, Ilge says 9:00. We get there at 8:59. Ilge was right.
Stock up at the local super market, you get a different class of beggar when you are wearing a tourist T shirt I find, and head back to
Henties.
